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Emergency Medicine: A Call to Listen - The Emergency Department Visit

Aug 30, 2017

A Call to Listen - The Emergency Department Visit

Austin Macauley Publishers (Jan. 31, 2017)Gene Dagnone (Author)

Emergency medicine is practiced in a fast moving, ever-changing environment. The individuals who work in emergency departments are required to think even faster and adapt even more frequently. The skills needed to perform at this level go far beyond the extensive medical training they all receive. The art of listening is equally important in the practice of any medicine, but doubly so in the emergency department. Every piece of information, every personal experience, every second opinion and every voice in the room may mean the difference between immediate and delayed action, sometimes even life and death. The tales recounted here illustrate how the tiniest detail can unlock a medical mystery, calm a child, comfort a loved one, or save a life.

Dr. Gene Dagnone is professor emeritus of emergency medicine at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. He has authored and co-authored a wide range of emergency medicine articles in the medical and health services journals in Canada, United States and Great Britain. He has served on the editorial board of two emergency medicine journals. His learning, teaching, research and clinical care experience spans half a century. In clinical practice, teaching and research, Dr. Dagnone and his emergency department colleagues are in search of the 'best answer.' When answers are not available or are weak, in terms of sensitivity and specificity, there are always better questions to ask and other possibilities to consider. The sharing of this anthology of experiences 'in listening in the emergency department' focuses on the trust and translation of the listening that occurs between caregiver and patient, caregiver and 'next of kin,' caregiver with each other.

This book is written for my colleagues (the ED nurse and the ED doctor) and our ED patients. It is a “Call to Listen” for caregivers, students and trainees in emergency nursing and emergency medicine. There is also a reminder that each of us, as ‘next of kin’, will receive a call from the ED some day or night in the near future for a loved one that has landed in that unsavory of all places - the ER. Are we, caregiver and next of kin, ready: